John Thomas Grant (December 13, 1813 – January 18, 1887) was an American railroad man.
He was born and raised on a farm near Athens, Georgia and graduated from the University of Georgia in 1833 with a degree in Forestry.
With his brother James and the unrelated Lemuel Grant he founded an engineering firm which constructed railroads in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, during which time he amassed a large fortune and enormous tracts of land.
The calamity of the American Civil War largely destroyed his prospects. Although, at the time of his death some 20 years later, he still possessed 60,000 acres (240 km²) in Texas.
He lies in the Grant mausoleum in Oakland Cemetery.
Famous quotes containing the word grant:
“We grant no dukedoms to the few,
We hold like rights and shall;—
Equal on Sunday in the pew,
On Monday in the mall.
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)